Grand opening. Grand closing … In ten days, no less. That’s how long Aviel Hirschfield’s copyright case against Drake survived. The producer filed suit over the global hit “Janice STFU” on October 16, then voluntarily dismissed the whole thing on October 27, 2026. The dismissal came without prejudice, so Hirschfield technically keeps the option to refile or amend later but don’t hold your breath. A fight that deflates this fast still tells its own story and might just validate the doubters who saw right through this one. You decide …
ICYMI, Drake’s camp came out swinging from the jump, calling the suit a “manufactured and baseless attempt” to cash in on the rapper’s name for money and clout.
So get this, buddy’s complaint said he created his version between December 2025 and January 2026, recording his own original vocals for a demo that January.
Just a quick note, X Account @ATP_Rap posted super producer Boi-1da giving his two cents:
“Every time you make a hit song there’s always some weirdo plotting to say you stole it from them. It’s happened to me every single time.” As @atp_rap points out, “Boi-1da has roughly 30+ Billion streams for credited songs on Spotify.” So guess he knows a bit about this part of the game.
Anyway, after the plaintiff’s so called chain of custody of the alleged reference track hit socials, that’s when the World Wide Web did their thing. YouTube creator and Drake proponent, What’s the Dirt went in his bag, isolated the vocals on Hirschfield’s leaked demo and lined them up against Drake’s official release. NGL, that was some Sherlock Holmesian type investigative journalism frfr.
According to his breakdown the waveforms matched identically. Reminds us of that Drake meme … “Embarrassing.” Had to do it. Tbh it wasn’t even rocket science, just common sense if you know how and where to look.
Their analysis argued the alleged demo was actually Drake’s finished hook, pitch-shifted, run through altered format filtering and laid over a leaked FnZ instrumental to pass as an “early reference track.”
We covered that simple breakdown by What’s the Dirt here.
And naturally Drake’s legal eagles took it further, publicly accusing Hirschfield of forging digital metadata and timestamps. Had the case reached discovery, a court-appointed forensic examiner would have gone through the creation dates on his files. In What’s the Dirt’s telling, the prospect of that scrutiny is what pushed Hirschfield to pull the plug.
And what about the whole lyric argument? See, that had problems of its own. Hirschfield pointed to the line “swear my label got to free me baby,” one of the standout bars of the Iceman era, as evidence his demo came first. What’s the Dirt noted the phrase was already circulating in Drake’s orbit during the late 2025 teaser streams. The melody created an even steeper hill. That chorus is built on an interpolation of Lykke Li’s 2011 song “I Follow Rivers,” and Drake, OVO and UMG cleared the publishing with Lykke Li’s team from day one. Hirschfield was effectively claiming a melody Drake had already paid another artist to use.
Once those independent creators finished picking apart his stems, the demo read like a reverse-engineered remix of the final song. Drake’s team labeled the effort “career suicide” and a “manufactured attempt to exploit Drake’s streaming momentum.”
Yikes.
As you can imagine, a whole rack of Drake Stans couldn’t help roasting the plaintiff on socials.
Sheesh.
Like we said the claim was dismissed without prejudice which is legal jargon for the door staying cracked for a refile but as we mentioned, don’t wait around too long for that next chapter. For now, “Janice STFU” keeps stacking streams, and the lawsuit chasing a piece of it is off the docket.
On that note …
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